And, IE11? 12? My point is that yes, we can go about writing a lot of
exceptions for specific use cases, and coming up with solutions for
each browser's DNT idiosyncracies, but the costs of that trade-off
increase the more we have to support.

I'd much rather we built a uniform system that asked users to
explicitly opt-out, and made clear what they were opting out of: it's
quite clear from both the public and private discussions around DNT
that there is a big detachment between user expectations of DNT and
what the protocol actually does, and so we should probably avoid
treating that protocol as a flag.

On 14 January 2015 at 13:45, Nuria Ruiz <nuria@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>For example, not collecting usage data about certain sections of our
>> population (e.g. IE10 users where DNT is set by default) >means that we
>> don't know if our software works for them.  This isn't free, and in the
>> long-term, it can have substantial negative >effects.  If DNT was always
>> disabled by default in major browsers, I would expect such biases to be
>> minimal.
> IE faulty support, downright wrong support or no support of many of the web
> apis is no news to anyone doing web development in the last 10 years and
> nothing to write your mom about, really.
>
> IE is treated it specially in many areas and we might do so in this one too
> if it turns out that:
>
> - No service pack install has corrected the DNT default (sounds like no,
> this did not happen)
>
> - IE10 traffic is significant. I will get those numbers as I checked
> browsers stats more than 6 months ago and things might have
> changed significantly. Last time I checked I *believe* (going from memory)
> we had quite a bit less traffic from ie10 than ie8.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Nuria
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 10:07 AM, Aaron Halfaker <ahalfaker@wikimedia.org>
> wrote:
>>
>> Ori, I don't think you addressed the point I made about that study.  They
>> didn't ask users what they thought *their* browser setting meant and what
>> they expected.  They asked what they thought a big red button with "DO NOT
>> TRACK" on it meant -- and the most common answer had to do with their local
>> browser history!
>>
>> Regardless, I think you make a good point.  The cost of getting something
>> wrong here may not be symmetrical, but it's not clear to me that erring on
>> collecting absolutely no data is less costly.
>>
>> For example, not collecting usage data about certain sections of our
>> population (e.g. IE10 users where DNT is set by default) means that we don't
>> know if our software works for them.  This isn't free, and in the long-term,
>> it can have substantial negative effects.  If DNT was always disabled by
>> default in major browsers, I would expect such biases to be minimal.
>>
>> Also, I think that if a user sets DNT and expects it to do something it
>> isn't supposed to do, we can always point them to the spec.   It's a sad
>> fact that, if you want to remain private on the web, you're going to need to
>> inform yourself about how such things work.  Just because we adopt an
>> extreme/overly-simplistic doesn't mean that the people you really don't want
>> to have your behavioral data will to -- but it certainly has the potential
>> to make research & product's job much more difficult.
>>
>> Really, what I'm trying to say is that if I "decline to collect data about
>> [you]", you shouldn't say, "meh".  You should be concerned about how we're
>> not considering what works and does not work for people like you when we
>> design, test and deploy software changes.  In a way, it's like taking away
>> your vote.  And if you don't believe that, I'd like to suggest that the only
>> alternative is that the work that I do does not bring value to our users --
>> and I'd beg to differ.
>>
>> -Aaron
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 11:40 AM, Ori Livneh <ori@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 3:17 PM, Aaron Halfaker <ahalfaker@wikimedia.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> They're really only asking what people think of when they read the words
>>>> "Do Not Track".  I'd be more interested in knowing what people expect when
>>>> then look at their particular browser setting and what it is they actually
>>>> hope it will accomplish.
>>>
>>>
>>> While it's true that there is ambiguity about what users are objecting to
>>> when they turn on DNT (3rd party tracking? behavioral tracking? all data
>>> collection?), the costs of getting it wrong not symmetrical. If I object to
>>> all forms of data collection, and you collect data about me anyway, I'd be
>>> pretty upset. But if I'm OK with certain forms of data collection, and you
>>> decline to collect data about me.. meh.
>>>
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--
Oliver Keyes
Research Analyst
Wikimedia Foundation

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